swombat.com

daily articles for founders

Swombat.com is no longer actively maintained, but all the posts here are still available for your use. The original objective was to regularly summarise and comment on the best articles for founders each day, as well as occasionally post our my own thoughts and advice, so that you could read the most useful articles while focusing on building your own startup. As most of the articles in the founders library were selected to be "evergreens", I hope you still find them useful!

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This is almost common knowledge in the startup world, and yet, even I (who don't cover any startup releases on swombat.com) still get emails from people looking to get some coverage for their startup's new product.

Clearly showing that you understand that a journalist doesn't just exist to publicize you is one of the fastest routes to his or her heart. It's literally the difference between drunkenly hitting on someone in a club and taking him/her on multiple dates to the restaurant you can't afford. Hell, you'd be unlikely to start a sales pitch without knowing your customer, or begin discussions with an investor without finding out exactly what they were interested in -- so why treat the media differently?

The closest relationships journalists build are with people who can provide long-term value to them by offering something that isn't just self-promotion. Conversely, these tend to be the names you see cropping up again and again in the media.

The age of the one-way exchange with journalists is over. Even Apple cultivates strong, two-way relationships with journalists and bloggers.

Every bit of (worthwhile) news coverage I've had for my startups has come out of a valid, two-way exchange. Sure, there are "news organisations" that will republish press releases without thinking twice - but nobody reads those anymore.